Yes Fury, I *am* doing this . And, seriously, they mostly work as a chronology - the only major thing to deal with is Clor, who's in the Civil War parody and Thor #600 backup, where Thor-proper can't appear between (except by reordering to minimise that gap), and a Bullpen Bits strip (#60) with human-Beast that's out of order (before #46-47). [The Mini-Marvels Wolverine, Angel & Colossus appearance in the MU during X-Men Unlimited #37 occurs before Bullpen Bits #52, BTW, owing to Wolverine's costume.]

Problem I'm coming up against is finding where all the damn things originally saw print! The Bullpen Bits strips I'm not even trying, I'm just listing those by their numbers (which are on the strips themselves, fulfilling the "If you have the comic..." criterion), since it would mean a horrendous list of =s for each one and obfuscate more than elucidate. The Power Pack backups also saw print all over the place, but the Power Pack printings are the most coherent and where they were apparently commissioned for.

The biggest problem ones for "where did they see print first" are these six:

Which (a) almost certainly isn't a complete list for ANY of them and (b) I don't know which issues to = and which to ignore. Any aid?

And the other one is pages 13-16 of "Hawkeye and the Beanstalk". (1-4) were in Wolverine & Power Pack #1 and (5-8) in #2... but it was bumped out of #3 to make room for an Oz preview, and only (9-12) were in issue 4. (13-16) exist, they're in the TPBs... but I don't know where the original printing was to list it.

Somebody wrote:Problem I'm coming up against is finding where all the damn things originally saw print! The Bullpen Bits strips I'm not even trying, I'm just listing those by their numbers (which are on the strips themselves, fulfilling the "If you have the comic..." criterion), since it would mean a horrendous list of =s for each one and obfuscate more than elucidate. The Power Pack backups also saw print all over the place, but the Power Pack printings are the most coherent and where they were apparently commissioned for.

I agree, AND there's precedent in the MCP for it. We have the Spider-Man/Jay Leno strips that ran across several titles under it's own abbreviation, so why not these?

Somebody wrote:The biggest problem ones for "where did they see print first" are these six:

Which (a) almost certainly isn't a complete list for ANY of them and (b) I don't know which issues to = and which to ignore. Any aid?

And the other one is pages 13-16 of "Hawkeye and the Beanstalk". (1-4) were in Wolverine & Power Pack #1 and (5-8) in #2... but it was bumped out of #3 to make room for an Oz preview, and only (9-12) were in issue 4. (13-16) exist, they're in the TPBs... but I don't know where the original printing was to list it.

I'll poke around and see what I can find out.

Mike's Amazing World of Comics can list comics by when they hit the shelves, so that can be a good starting point. Of course, I'll have to flip through some actual comics to see if they actually had the strips or not.

Col_Fury wrote:Mike's Amazing World of Comics can list comics by when they hit the shelves, so that can be a good starting point. Of course, I'll have to flip through some actual comics to see if they actually had the strips or not.

Yeah, they were pretty much used randomly as page-filler around that time...

Col_Fury wrote:Are you including the Green/Red/Blue Hulk strips?

I'm in two minds about those - on the one hand, six of them are in the second Mini-Marvels digest... but on the other, they continued after Giarrusso left Marvel on the cancellation of Mini-Marvels (Super-Hero Squad ). Also, the only definite Mini-Marvels strip to feature Hulk after the WWH trilogy was done had him still using "I". What would you say?

Here's the rest of my list of strips and their (main pre-TPB) publications in the 2006-2009 run:

I'm in two minds about those - on the one hand, six of them are in the second Mini-Marvels digest... but on the other, they continued after Giarrusso left Marvel on the cancellation of Mini-Marvels (Super-Hero Squad ). Also, the only definite Mini-Marvels strip to feature Hulk after the WWH trilogy was done had him still using "I". What would you say?

Some of them were included in the collection, as you say, so I would say yes, include them.

And you reminded me about Fastlane. Those were given chronologies in the recent Index series…

Okay, here's the basic spine I'm working from for the chronologies. Liberties have had to be taken with publication order (not that the TPBs bother with that!) owing to trying to keep Wasp-as-Giant-Girl appearances together and the Clor thing. Given that, this look okay to you Fury?

Col_Fury wrote:What happens in Taco Bell F4? COULD it be an early-days adventure, too?

Nah, wrong costumes. The F4 are drawn the way Giarrasso drew them in the later strips, along the lines of the Alan Davis suits from the Heroes Return relaunch and F4: The End. Their earlier costumes in Bullpen Bits had white collars, gloves, belts and boots.

It's a straightforward gag strip that could otherwise happen any time.

[The Cap one, since I didn't mention, was about him visiting the library to try and get out of his $6000 fine that accumulated while he was frozen!]

Col_Fury wrote:I'm having a heck of a time finding where the Hawkeye and the Beanstalk part 4 first saw print. I haven't given up yet, though!

Which brings the obvious question up if neither of us can find any trace - COULD those pages have first seen print in the Mini-Marvels Vol. 2: Secret Invasion digest?

Which (a) almost certainly isn't a complete list for ANY of them and (b) I don't know which issues to = and which to ignore. Any aid?

I'll poke around and see what I can find out.

Mike's Amazing World of Comics can list comics by when they hit the shelves, so that can be a good starting point. Of course, I'll have to flip through some actual comics to see if they actually had the strips or not.

I can say that Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #14 hit the shelves on April 5, while Marvel Adventure Fantastic Four #11 hit on April 12, so the Black Cat can be shortened to just MarvAdvS-M 14.

X-Men First Class #5 was released January 17, 2007, Heroes for Hire #6 was released January 24, 2007, so HfH can get dropped from the Couch.
MarvAdvAvengers #9 was released January 17, 2007, but MarAdvAvengers #4, which is what you have listed, was released August 16, 2006. If it's supposed to be #9 (which I don't have personally to check), that would need to stay along with First Class #5, but if it's supposed to be #4, then both First Class & HfH can get dropped.

It looks like by this point the Mini Marvels were commissioned for the Marvel Adventures line, for whatever that's worth.

Looks like Marvel Adventures Spider-Man got the first printing straight though, except for that one random Planet Hulk issue that came out with "The Snowman" the same week as M/ADVSM.

So, if we just assume that "Hawkeye and the Beanstalk" pt 4 first saw print in Digest 2 - mildly complicated to pick a story number, since each story is presented as a oner rather than segmented into parts according to previous printings, but other than that... - that should be it, yes?